Military History Club Podcast · Saul David

Evan Mawdsley on 'Supremacy at Sea'

·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

Each Task Force 58 task group matched the size of the entire U.S. Navy in 1940.

1. Military History Club Podcast covers the Battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944 with Saul David and Evan Mawdsley. 2. Saul David hosts the episode, and Evan Mawdsley is the guest historian behind Supremacy at Sea, Task Force 58, and the Central Pacific Victory. 3. The episode asks how Task Force 58, U.S. carrier aviation, and Japanese carrier strategy shaped the Pacific war in 1944. 4. Mawdsley starts with Santa Cruz in late October 1942 because he sees it as a before-and-after battle for the American carrier force. 5. He says Santa Cruz was the last big carrier battle Japan won and a low point for the pre-war U.S. Navy. 6. He contrasts that with Midway in June 1942, which still left Japan with more carriers than the United States by the end of 1942. 7. Mawdsley argues that Pearl Harbor crippled the battleship navy and forced the carriers to do the heavy lifting. 8. He links the U.S. comeback to the Two Ocean Navy Act of summer 1940, the fall of France, and Roosevelt’s hemispheric defense argument. 9. He says Roosevelt also spoke about building 50,000 planes, including 15,000 for the Navy, and that shipbuilding, training, and industrial expansion all mattered. 10. He identifies the Essex class as 26,000-ton carriers laid down in 1941 and notes that the first entered the fleet in spring 1943. 11. He also describes the Independence-class light carriers as cruiser conversions ordered during the war, giving the fleet more hulls quickly. 12. Mawdsley says the U.S. had 16 carriers available by mid-1944, while the Japanese could not replace the four carriers lost at Midway. 13. He adds that the Hellcat first flew in June 1942 and that American carrier aviation improved sharply once the Hellcat and Corsair reached the Pacific in late summer 1943. 14. He says the U.S. also built fleet oilers and a fleet train, which gave Task Force 58 long range and sustained operations at sea. 15. Mawdsley contrasts Raymond Spruance, a battleship officer and Naval War College thinker, with Mark Mitchell, an early naval aviator from Kansas who favored carrier aviation. 16. He notes that Spruance gained prominence at Midway while Mitchell’s command of Hornet went badly, before Mitchell later returned to command Task Force 58 in January 1944. 17. The episode’s main tactical dispute is whether Mitchell should have moved west on 18 June 1944 to strike first or whether Spruance was right to stay defensive and cover Saipan. 18. Mawdsley says the Japanese had captured planning documents after Admiral Koga’s death in a plane crash, and that the Zed plans outlined long-range strikes and attacks on the amphibious force. 19. The tone is analytical and comparative, with Saul pressing for clarification and Mawdsley answering in detailed, historically specific terms. 20. Listeners interested in Pacific naval warfare and carrier strategy will get the most from this episode; listeners wanting a short summary of the battle outcome may skip it.

As heard by us

A serious look at a Pacific carrier battle that shaped the Marianas campaign.

The Philippine Sea is framed here less as a single clash than as a long argument about timing and priorities in the Pacific war. Saul David and Evan Maudsley begin with Santa Cruz in late 1942, then follow the buildup of American carrier power over the next year and a half to…

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You want the Battle of the Philippine Sea framed as a fight between landing security and fleet destruction.

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